He persuasively demonstrates that horror films are not merely a manifestation of the solitary, unconscious ′I′ or cultural abjection. . . . This well-crafted, insightful, and devilishly witty study brings horror out from under the psychoanalytic rock to let it scurry and bleed in the daylight of everyday life. The detailed endnotes are scintillating gems in and of themselves. --Choice "Terror and Everyday Life is an important, well-conceived, and well-executed work. Crane′s treatment of the topic is unusual; he clearly positions himself as a fan of the contemporary horror film. Consequently, there are moments that seem to revel in the disgusting details of murder and mayhem. However, this approach is appropriate; as Crane makes perfectly clear, this is what the genre is about, so to ignore it would be to misrepresent its effects and--for horror fans--its pleasures. This is a complex scholarly work, exceptionally original." --Charles R. Acland, Communication Department, The University of Calgary, Alberta, Canada How does horror in film relate to the horror we experience in everyday life? This is one of the key questions addressed in this new examination of the horror film genre. Terror and Everyday Life argues that today′s horror films have broken away from the genre′s tradition to embrace far more violent imagery, images that are in keeping with the escalating violence in our society. By examining the horror film, its history, and its current trends, Jonathan Lake Crane furthers our understanding of the genre′s meaning in today′s culture and our fascination with violence. An important supplement for courses in popular culture, media studies, and film; Terror and Everyday Life′s unique approach on the nature of horror in our society will also be of interest in a wide range of disciplines.

How does the horror in film relate to the horror we experience in everyday life? This is one of the questions addressed in this examination of the genre of horror film. The author argues that horror films today have broken with the tradition of the genre to embrace far more violent imagery, images that are in keeping with the escalating violence in society. By examining the horror film, its history and its current trends, the author hopes to further our understanding of the meaning of the genre in today's culture and our fascination with violence.

The horrors of the Nazi regime and the Holocaust still present some of the most disturbing questions in modern history: Why did Hitler's party appeal to millions of Germans, and how entrenched was anti-Semitism among the population? How could anyone claim, after the war, that the genocide of Europe's Jews was a secret? Did ordinary non-Jewish Germans live in fear of the Nazi state? In this unprecedented firsthand analysis of daily life as experienced in the Third Reich, What We Knew offers answers to these most important questions. Combining the expertise of Eric A. Johnson, an American historian, and Karl-Heinz Reuband, a German sociologist, What We Knew is the most startling oral history yet of everyday life in the Third Reich.

This dissertation aims to locate the power and popularity of contemporary horror films in terms of a response to post-modernity. Present-day horror films only make sense, can only be enjoyed, when read as spectacularly excessive productions overtly concerned with the everyday experience of post-modernity. The body of research done on the horror film genre has been based on psycho-analytic/transcendental models which are inappropriate starting points, if the slasher film and others of its infamous ilk, are to be read as measures of change in everyday life. Consequently, after a brief overview detailing the nature of contemporary existence, the dissertation begins with a critique of transcendental/psycho-analytic approaches to understanding cinematic horror. Following the survey of alternatives to post-modern film reviewing, the dissertation offers readings of four classic films in horror history: Nosferatu (1921), Frankenstein (1931), Them! (1954), and Friday the 13th (1980). As everyday life changed and continues to be transformed, these readings demonstrate where and when the meaning and apprehension of horror also mutated. These texts also demonstrate where psycho-analytic/transcendental models of the audience member, fail to explain horror films fascination with events located outside the purview of psychic drives. The dissertation concludes with the argument that, as post-modernity and post-modernism define how we live and think, horror films offer a clear and bleak avenue to understanding everyday life.

"Combines the otherworldliness of Jeff VanderMeer’s “Annihilation,” the menacing irony of Shirley Jackson and the cold feminist fury of Margaret Atwood" --The New York Times Book Review Named a Fall Read by The Boston Globe and the Chicago Tribune The mundane becomes sinister in a disquieting story collection from the author of The Grip of It In Jac Jemc’s dislocating second story collection, False Bingo, we watch as sinister forces—some supernatural, some of this earth, some real and some not—work their ways into the mundanity of everyday life. In “Strange Loop,” an outcast attempting to escape an unnamed mistake spends his days taxiderming animals, while in “Delivery,” a family watches as their dementia-addled, basement-dwelling father succumbs to an online shopping addiction. “Don’t Let’s” finds a woman, recently freed from an abusive relationship, living in an isolated vacation home in the South that might be haunted by breath-stealing ghosts. Fueled by paranoia and visceral suspense, and crafted with masterful restraint, these seventeen stories explore what happens when our fears cross over into the real, if only for a fleeting moment. Identities are stolen, alternate universes are revealed, and innocence is lost as the consequences of minor, seemingly harmless decisions erupt to sabotage a false sense of stability. “This is not a morality tale about the goodness of one character triumphing over the bad of another,” the sadistic narrator of “Pastoral” announces. Rather, False Bingo is a collection of realist fables exploring how conflicting moralities can coexist: the good, the bad, the indecipherable.

What do horror films reveal about social difference in the everyday world? Criticism of the genre often relies on a dichotomy between monstrosity and normality, in which unearthly creatures and deranged killers are metaphors for society’s fear of the “others” that threaten the “normal.” The monstrous other might represent women, Jews, or Blacks, as well as Indigenous, queer, poor, elderly, or disabled people. The horror film’s depiction of such minorities can be sympathetic to their exclusion or complicit in their oppression, but ultimately, these images are understood to stand in for the others that the majority dreads and marginalizes. Adam Lowenstein offers a new account of horror and why it matters for understanding social otherness. He argues that horror films reveal how the category of the other is not fixed. Instead, the genre captures ongoing metamorphoses across “normal” self and “monstrous” other. This “transformative otherness” confronts viewers with the other’s experience—and challenges us to recognize that we are all vulnerable to becoming or being seen as the other. Instead of settling into comforting certainties regarding monstrosity and normality, horror exposes the ongoing struggle to acknowledge self and other as fundamentally intertwined. Horror Film and Otherness features new interpretations of landmark films by directors including Tobe Hooper, George A. Romero, John Carpenter, David Cronenberg, Stephanie Rothman, Jennifer Kent, Marina de Van, and Jordan Peele. Through close analysis of their engagement with different forms of otherness, this book provides new perspectives on horror’s significance for culture, politics, and art.

In Recreational Terror, Isabel Cristina Pinedo analyzes how the contemporary horror film produces recreational terror as a pleasurable encounter with violence and danger for female spectators. She challenges the conventional wisdom that violent horror films can only degrade women and incite violence, and contends instead that the contemporary horror film speaks to the cultural need to express rage and terror in the midst of social upheaval.

Readers interested in Arab studies, Detroit culture and history, transnational politics, and the changing dynamics of race and ethnicity in America will enjoy the personal reflection and analytical insight of Arab Detroit 9/11.

AN INSTANT #1 NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER​ Named one of the most anticipated novels of the season by People, Associated Press, Time, Los Angeles Times, Parade, St. Louis Post-Dispatch, The Guardian, Publishers Weekly, and more. From the #1 bestselling authors Hillary Clinton and Louise Penny comes a novel of unsurpassed thrills and incomparable insider expertise—State of Terror. After a tumultuous period in American politics, a new administration has just been sworn in, and to everyone’s surprise the president chooses a political enemy for the vital position of secretary of state. There is no love lost between the president of the United States and Ellen Adams, his new secretary of state. But it’s a canny move on the part of the president. With this appointment, he silences one of his harshest critics, since taking the job means Adams must step down as head of her multinational media conglomerate. As the new president addresses Congress for the first time, with Secretary Adams in attendance, Anahita Dahir, a young foreign service officer (FSO) on the Pakistan desk at the State Department, receives a baffling text from an anonymous source. Too late, she realizes the message was a hastily coded warning. What begins as a series of apparent terrorist attacks is revealed to be the beginning of an international chess game involving the volatile and Byzantine politics of Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Iran; the race to develop nuclear weapons in the region; the Russian mob; a burgeoning rogue terrorist organization; and an American government set back on its heels in the international arena. As the horrifying scale of the threat becomes clear, Secretary Adams and her team realize it has been carefully planned to take advantage of four years of an American government out of touch with international affairs, out of practice with diplomacy, and out of power in the places where it counts the most. To defeat such an intricate, carefully constructed conspiracy, it will take the skills of a unique team: a passionate young FSO; a dedicated journalist; and a smart, determined, but as yet untested new secretary of state. State of Terror is a unique and utterly compelling international thriller cowritten by Hillary Rodham Clinton, the 67th secretary of state, and Louise Penny, a multiple award-winning #1 New York Times bestselling novelist.

A follow up to Uncle Montague's Tales of Terror, this is another creepy middle grade story collection with a chilling frame. This time, the stories are all tales of the sea: pirates and plagues and storms a plenty...